bikes and things

Now in a handy to use easy print out guide for lazy journalists, bloggers and aggressive drivers.

Via Carlton Reid.

I’ve been a big fan of Crossing Paths for a while now and have really enjoyed seeing Niall’s images appear after his travels around the UK.

I’m generally skeptical of street photography as in my opinion an excuse for quite lazy and cliched work. Often this is of the back of people’s head against amusingly cropped bill boards or someone smoking in an alley. There are exceptions to this but good street photographers seem to be rare. There’s also something about that magic moment which is so crucial to street photography that most are unable to catch, again all in my opinion. I was also never really a fan of the sartorialist street photography, but mainly because I’m not a fashion junkie, having said that I was completely in awe of Bill Cunningham having watched his film and appreciated his dedication and engagement with the New York fashion scene.

Having said all of that Niall’s work seems really captivates me and seems to have blended these two genres into something personal to him and at the same time far more inspiring and touching. Having thought about this for a while I feel that it’s the difference between being an observer and someone who engages with their subject which makes one have more value to me. Niall’s work perhaps veers more towards portraiture than street photography yet with it also has this wonderful feeling of serendipity.

Niall manages to capture something unique of the personality of the person in their clothing, location, stance, their expression and character. The relationship of colours to the backgrounds he chooses always fascinates me. There’s so much to get out the images and what is nice about the above video is that you get to see some of the engagement that goes in to making these photos and how he relates to the people on the street. Part of the reason I am in awe of this project is that chatting to people on the street is hard, I don’t mean in a raised eyebrows nod, huh, shared event style but actually stopping someone, asking about them, taking an interest in them as a person and then taking their portrait. The act of making a portrait seems to be a incredibly intimate process which is what elevates this from other genres of street photography for me. There’s also a form of celebration of the ordinary person and the UK as a whole. We’re pretty bad at celebrating our uniqueness but the video seems to highlight how much delight Niall seems to take from this island of ours and all the fascinating people that inhabit it, a kind of love letter to the UK if you like. I can’t wait to get hold of a copy of the book!

Got off my bike this evening a opened an email from Everpix saying that they’re closing their doors. Everpix is one of my favourite services, and one that I’d written about previously.

So sad to see it go as it was such a nice idea. I loved receiving that email each day with what I’d been up to the last few years ago on that date. Alas it’s no more. Hopefully someone will buy it or a similar service will start.

An interesting little study of a junction in Kentish Town showing a few changes of the lights and those people who choose to obey or not obey the rules. Watch it to the end and watch out for the Royal Mail van.

This seems to show what I see each day on the way to work. 99% of people riding bikes sitting at the lights amongst the scooters and cars in the ASL. A few departing early from the lights to get clear of the traffic (me included) but most waiting for the lights to turn green.

Via @Londonneur

It’s been great to be out three weekends riding in a row now and hopefully we can keep that up and do a few more longer rides.

The last two weekends have been at Swinley which were both surprisingly good. The first with Vaughan and Matt and was ridiculously muddy. Then the week after I went with Joe and Chrissy for an ever so slightly longer ride.

This last series of berms were great fun and obviously great company too.

So this weekend the idea was to try and follow a new route and see how easy it is (or not) to follow a this downloaded from the net and then added to the Garmin. The other aim was to start upping the mileage a bit as rides have got shorter and shorter over the years. The first week it was 12, the second 14 so this week the idea was to try 24. Whilst those numbers sound low it is a lot harder off road than on. I do want to get to the point where I could ride 30 miles off road at a decent pace without too much hassle.

I found this one via singletrackworld.com so thought it would probably be ok after scanning around the map view. It’s hard to judge the quality of a lot of the routes out there generally but this looked like a good one.

The trail starts in Wescott rather than our usual Peaslake carpark stop so we headed out there this morning and got going after two service station stops – Matt was a little hungover. Seemed like a nice start to the trail and we got going and didn’t have too much trouble following the GPS. We got the hang of it and it seemed to flow quite nicely. It wasn’t until we got to Summer Lightning and followed it down to the bottom that we realised we had started going in completely the wrong direction. For whatever reason the Garmin doesn’t say “Turn around you’re going the wrong way” it just plots your position against the map. How annoying! Anyway we rode a few trails we hadn’t in a long long time and still had a good time. In future I’m going to take a screen shot of the start to avoid this.

The above is what we actually rode, 14 miles or so but with lots of the same ground being covered whilst we tried to establish what was going on with the map. I also didn’t start the timer straight away so there’s a few more miles to add to that. Regardless it was good to get out, ride some trails as well as test out the limitations or foibles. Hopefully we can go back next weekend and do it properly!

No pictures today apart from this one of us washing the bikes. Exciting eh?

Incredible image from the set of Wes Anderson’s, The Life Aquatic, with Steve Zissou.

Via Kier Alexander.

Felt pretty stressed today. Lots to do and try and achieve before a meeting tomorrow and then I get this in my inbox.

Hi Andy

I am including a case study on the **project** in a book on domestic refurbishment projects to be published by RIBA Publishing in spring next year. Around 30 projects will be featured and the book will be a well-designed hardback with an initial print run of 2,000. I do not have a budget for the reproduction of photographs so I am having to rely on the architects concerned to supply illustrations free of charge. I don’t know what your arrangement is with **** Architects but I am hoping you can supply the shots included on their website. You will be properly credited, of course. The book includes the best work of the leading young architects in London and the rest of the UK and the photography I have received so far is by well respected architectural photographers so you will be in good company.

The book is soon to go into production so I would need to receive the material as soon as possible.

Yours

********* RIBA

First impressions, wow…

As a fully paid up member of the RIBA it’s pretty crap that they don’t even think that paying for photography is necessary. Would they suggest Architects work for free? Now I’m sure they’re not giving this book away as it’s “a well-designed hardback“. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it is going to be free? So if they don’t have the budget to pay photographers then they don’t have the budget to publish a book surely? I’m sure they’ll be charging a decent fee and making a profit of some form. In addition Mr RIBA is suggesting that a credit will suffice and that it’ll probably get me more work. I’ll also be surrounded by the best of the best, all of whom are giving their work for free.

Now I feel slightly conflicted as I’d love the Architects I shot for to be published and gain more work for themselves as well as wider recognition. So I do want them to be published but why should the RIBA make money off them and me without giving anything back? There’s not even the offer of a free copy of the book!

And to top it all off.. can you get us images as soon as possible please? Not only are they free but they’re very urgent. Unbelievable. I wonder if the RIBA will give me my 2014 membership for free? I don’t have a budget for it and it’s urgent as 2013 is almost over.

Now I’m not the sort that objects to free work of any kind. I’ve done free designs, sketches, photos, in fact entire days of photography for free. But they are all done for a reason, whether that be PR and exposure, friends, a charity or just because I’ve offered to waive my fee. But this stinks, really stinks. I wish the RIBA had a bit more respect for their own professionals as well as photographers who are trying to make a living. It’s not very easy paying the rent with a credit.

So I’ll probably give them the images anyway as I feel for the Architects but holy hell it’s one more nail in the RIBA’s coffin for me.

EDIT: As pointed out on Twitter by Steve Parnell the RIBA and RIBA publishing are two different entities. The RIBA is a registered charity which I’m more inclined to support – as above comment on working for free. RIBA Publishing is a fully fledged business though.

Somewhere someone does something bad…

..and then the Twitter storm begins. Very funny and pretty accurate in most ways.

I hadn’t been out on my mountain bike since the beginning of September fr a variety of reasons, one of which was a blown shock which had cut short my last trip. So it was great to get out with Vaughan and Matt on Sunday to Swinley for a bit. The trip up the motorway was slightly alarming due to the sheer amount of rain coming out of the sky.

I’d gone off Swinley after a few very busy trips during the summer. It seems like this wet weather had killed the interest in it, at least on Sunday. We didn’t see many people and more importantly didn’t get stuck behind anyone or hold anyone else up.

It was muddy as hell and slippy too. The phrase “UK slop and grime” from the old ChocolateFoot days came to mind. The usual fear of riding off road came back after not riding for almost six weeks. Seems to take a while to get dialled in and trust the tyres and keep off the brakes. Half way round I seemed to get the hang of it.

I also thought I’d try my new Garmin GPS which I’d got to plan some road training for LEJO next year. Interesting the kind of stats it gives you and then it plots all of these on a little web app. Neat but complex getting it all to work. Not a massive ride by any stretch of the imagination but you’ve got to start somewhere I guess. Need to start ramping up the miles from now on.

Brilliant. The Bieber one really gets me.

Which also reminds me of the genius of this – Kanye West tweets as songs.